“And in the end, it's not the years in your life that count. It's the life in your years.”

The cause of today’s spurt of grey hair is not an MIA from my family tree, although there are certainly many of them lurking just behind the next census page, I’m sure. Nor is it inspired by the inablity to read that mysterious new document or clearly view and identify the faces in that old photograph.

Today’s near-break with reality is actually self-inflicted. A family historian certainly has to be a gluten for punishment and I am no exception. Let me explain.

I am hopelessly addicted to genealogy, and also to the technology that powers so much of the “internet age of genealogy”. I just love to tinker with this blog, trying out anything new and different. I’m always experimenting with the latest image-editing software or genealogy program. There are so many wonderful tools out there in cyberland that assist in the hunt!

Right now, I am in the process of getting my new website up and running. I had a hosted site once before, about a year ago, but just wasn’t happy with it, maybe because I just never got comfortable with it. While not a total newbie with site management, I’m certainly not a geek, either. (I use the term geek with affection, I assure you. You all have my deepest respect!)

So this time I’m using PhpGedView, “a revolutionary genealogy program which allows you to view and edit your genealogy on your website. PhpGedView has full editing capabilities, full privacy functions, can import from GEDCOM files, and supports multimedia like photos and document images. PhpGedView also simplifies the process of collaborating with others working on your family tree. Your latest genealogy information is always on your website and available for others to see.”

The host that I chose installed the program for me and had it running in it’s most basic configuration within about 15 minutes of me signing up, and that was yesterday, a Sunday. Pretty impressive! So I spent most of last evening playing with PhpGedView. So far I really like the program. Certainly different from RootsMagic 4, which I use on my own computer.

I like to hope that by putting all my research online, that it will be safer in the event of catastrophe. Be that a hard drive demise or wild weather (I do live in Tornado Alley!) or any other such event, this is just another way to back-up my work.

And then there’s the concept of “cloud computing”. I normally use my own computer when researching, even taking it on the road as needed. But wouldn’t it be nice to have access to my files at any time, even without my trusty laptop? I think so. (If I can just remember that password… :~ )

I also had WordPress installed on my site, so I’ll soon be importing this blog into the new site. Simple to do, but again I’ll lose all the images that are in the old media library. Kind of annoying that the images won’t transfer. They are still on my hard drive, snug as a bug!

When I began this post this morning, my headache was caused by the fact that I couldn’t log onto my new site, instead I got the “Page not available” message. After about 2 hours, I sent a message to the hosting company, then my granddaughter came over and we left to go shopping. Just as well, ‘cuz I was getting pretty aggravated!

When we got home from the mall, the hosting company had resolved the problem, whatever it was. I went to my site and there was both PhpGedView and WordPress, as if nothing had happened. New site glitches, I suppose…

Anyway, I still have some fine-tuning to do with both programs. What fun!